Former President Trump on Tuesday accused Vice President Harris of running a “campaign of hate” for the White House, even as he has called his opponents the “enemy from within” and as his allies are under fire for racist and sexist attacks in recent days.
The former president addressed a room of supporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate hours before Harris was set to deliver what her campaign billed as her closing message in a speech on the Ellipse outside the White House, where she is expected to urge the country to turn the page on Trump.
“She’s running on a campaign of immoralization, and really a campaign of destruction. But really, perhaps more than anything else, it’s a campaign of hate. A campaign of absolute hate,” Trump said. “I said yesterday that she’s a vessel. She is a vessel. It’s a very big powerful party with smart people … but they’re vicious, and they’re perhaps even trying to destroy our country.”
“After two assassination attempts in just over three months, her lies and her slanders are very shameful and really inexcusable,” Trump added, referring to the attempts on his life.
Harris and some of her allies have in recent days ramped up their warnings about how Trump might govern if he wins in November.
The GOP presidential nominee’s critics have increasingly been willing to say the former president meets the definition of a fascist. Mark Milley, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told veteran journalist Bob Woodward that Trump is a “fascist to the core.”
Former Trump White House chief of staff John Kelly also recently told The New York Times the 45th president meets the definition of a fascist, and he recalled his former boss expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler.
Harris has seized on Kelly’s comments and has said she agrees Trump is a fascist, and the campaign has featured Kelly’s criticisms in ads.
The rhetoric has drawn blowback from some Republicans, who argued it has gone too far during an election where Trump has been the target of two assassination attempts.
But Trump himself has used harsh rhetoric to describe his opponents. He has described Harris as a fascist and a Marxist, and he has repeatedly labeled his political rivals the “enemy from within,” suggesting in one recent interview that the military could be used to quell domestic unrest if he wins.
Speakers at Trump’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday have stirred controversy with their rhetoric as well.
Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe delivered a set hours before Trump spoke that included inflammatory attacks on Puerto Ricans, calling the U.S. territory a “floating island of garbage.”
Sid Rosenberg, a New York City radio host whose show Trump periodically calls in to, said the Democratic Party was a “bunch of degenerates.”
One speaker described Harris as “the devil” and “the antichrist.”
Harris told reporters that Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden underscored why many Americans felt “exhausted” by the former president.
